ELBOX New Spider device

[Darrin]

Excellent news!  Now I can move my fantastic Deneb into my A2000 and put a spider into my A4000 (would have bought another Deneb, but they're all gone now).

Well done Elbox and well done to Chris Hodges who released Poseidon 4.4 to the community and always said that it was the Spider drivers that needed updating.

[Darrin]

Thanks for letting me know, I will test on my Spider now.

Please let us know.  If it works then I'll order one through you.

Cheers.

[Darrin]

Poseidon 4.4 works fine on my A1200T with AmigaOS 3.9

Click for picture:

Great.  I'm off to place an order on your USA website...

Edit:  Damn, you don't have any for sale.  :-(

[Darrin]

Spider is not yet available- we hope to get a scheduled Elbox order in the next few weeks.

OK, I'll wait until you get them in.  Put me down as a firm order.  I'll actually be in Wales again in November for the Swansea v Man Utd and the Cardiff v Forest matches, so if the stock comes in late I'll give you a Maesteg address to send it to or I'll pick it up in person.

[Darrin]

So are these cards still rebadged NEC 720101 USB cards with a modified PCI ID?

Probably.  A bit like MorphOS is a modified OS3.1

Does this particular driver erase RDB if you're unlucky?

Only if you're a pirate.

[Darrin]

You'd think they would have to be or else the old cards would stop working.

Do these drivers wipe out your RDB if you have faulty memory, a rogue app writes out of bounds or you try to fake the PCI ID?

Edit: Looks like he edited in the same question while I was posting.

As far as I'm aware the RDB "protection" issue has been over with and non existant for years and was confined to a particular driver.

[Darrin]

If you're trying to find as bad analogy as you can you've succeeded.

No, I'm just being childish like you are as you try and undermine Amigakit and Elbox sales.

If only. Unfortunately AmigaOS has no memory protection, and as such the driver cannot tell a difference between a pirate and some application trashing innocent memory.

So it is just as well that such drivers no longer exist then, isn't it?

[Darrin]

Considering that 100s of us use Elbox products with Elbox drivers every day then I think the answer speaks for itself.

I'd rather see Piru back up his statement by producing evidence that such code exists in the latest drivers.

I think the RDB stuff goes back to the first days when Elbox were guarding their drivers like the crown jewels and you had to get them on CD and then register their products in order to access any updates.  These days you can just download the latest drivers off their website with no checks.

[Darrin]

Does this particular driver erase RDB if you're unlucky?

and yes, I know the difference between "suggesting" and "stating", but we both know what you were insinuating so don't try and be clever.

[Darrin]

Well it looked like as if you wouldn't have. Thanks for setting the record straight.

So, can we take that as "there is no RDB trashing code in Elbox's drivers that Piru knows about and he just hates to think of them selling rebadged USB cards to Mediator owners"?

[Darrin]

Piru
Have to agree with you here. Completely absurd analogy.

Darrin are you kidding us or what with that crap?  Its like blaming the London Riots on Seaguls... doesnt make sense? Sound silly? EXACTLY

btw have fun at the games im sooo jealous ... though obviously Swansea has zero chance v Man U.

Of course I was kidding.  Like I said, I was just throwing crap back to mimic the original comment.

I fear you're right, unless Swansea beat Arsenal 9-2 on the 10th.  

Still, whatever the result, it is going to be a good game.

[Darrin]

I don't think Elbox is fine with it or they would have made a generic USB driver from the start. I doubt they would have lost much if any money because of the increased Mediator sales. Their greedy clenched fists can't hold as much money as an open hand.

Greedy?  Perhaps it is the fact that they actually make money is what keeps them in the market.  Want to buy a new G-Rex or Promethius from AmigaKit?  Oh, that's right, you can't.  Anyone else planning on making a PCI adapter for classic Amigas?  Nope.  I'd rather pay over the odds for some useful hardware than not have the hardware at all.  Anyone who thinks that there's money to be made can come up with their own solutions.

As far as I'm aware, OpenPCI drivers can run along side Elbox's Mediator drivers (for running things like a PCI Catweasle) so why hasn't someone developed a USB driver for a $5 card yet?

[Darrin]

@darrin: yeah that is good to have openpci as a sidekick to closed source drivers. and why none has developed a driver? because there is no devs left on aos. thank god we have some new aros devs like toni und jason dedicated mostly to 68k. jason has clearly expressed interrest to support pci bridges and much more on aros68k. its on todo list.

Hopefully we'll see some 68k drivers for OpenPCI soon.  The more devices we can use the better:  Firewire/USB combo cards, SATA/PATA cards, etc.

[Darrin]

@Darrin,

I am using a SATA PCI card here on my A1200T with Mediator when running AmigaOS 4.1 Classic

That's interesting.  I have my Mediator in an A4000 and only want it for "classic" use (and to be honest, my FPGA Arcade is taking up a lot of my Classic use and it will probably reduce the A4000 to a dusty shelf once I can add Jacub's 68060 board to it).  For OS4.x I want one of those X1000s when they're available.